Estamos Todos Bem

I saw this film many years ago, and still think of it as one of the finest movies ever. The reason I came today to comment it is that while reviewing the comments about another film I saw yesterday, I find that that that one was among the 50 best films in IMDB. While that move was good, I could not see how this one is not even among the 250 best.

If you are a father of children who moved away, or if you are a child who moved away from your birthplace, you will appreciate this movie. It applies to Italian immigrants, or to African immigrants in Italy (there is a scene showing them sleeping in cardboard boxes that shows how human is that experience of being alone in a foreign place). you do not even have to leave your country, as this movie shows, to find yourself trying to make it alone, and trying to make your parents believe that you are OK. Of course, like in every good lie, some help from the person being lied is also needed.

If you can rent it, or if you hear of this movie being shown on your local station, please see it. It will be one of the best movies you will se in your life. It is a 10/10 for me.

I like Robert De Niro as much as anyone, however the American version of Stanno Tutti Bene reduces the main role encapsulated with such finesse and effortlessness by Marcello Mastroianni that I must insist the original be viewed to compare...I recommend anyone with a genuine appreciation of Italian cinema to rent this movie. Sadly it remains unavailable in DVD. I am advised that it will soon be.

Stanno tutti Bene is without a doubt one of Mastroianni's finest performance,he captures both our eyes and our hearts as an endearing Italian patriarch. The story is simple spiced by moments of pure emotion and also humour. A sombre,sad,almost clown like humour is projected by Mastroianni's interpretation the evident disconnection with reality he is faced with really does tell us that at times "Ignorance is bliss"

This really is a wonderful film. Though at times it is hard to watch. All this kind man wants is to know that his children are happy and doing okay in their adult lives. One must pay close attention to each scene because in each of these scenes, one can find some sort of message that links the whole movie together. The most important scenes to look out for are the dream sequences and the flashbacks.

This is an artist's dream of film making: a beautiful and visual treat with stunning - Fellini like - images and imagination. It's comical as well, with Marcello Mastroianni enjoying his role and looking funny, wearing a big, floppy, flower-pot-hat with rim - and overcoat: and profiling a bushy- white moustache; and large, black rimmed glasses with bottle-top lenses. Marcello Mastroianni: delightful- uniquely, and acting in remarkable and emotional style ( - and worthy to compare to Charlie Chaplin and Jacques Tati. )

The film score by Ennio Morricone is electrifying , and inspired, and greatly enhancing the film's quality. ( Anyone could be forgiven by mistaking the cinematic score to be written by Nino Rota? ) Guiseppe Tornatore as film director -in one scene, there feels a striking reference to 'Cinema Paradiso' with child actor, Salvatore Cascio -in a misty, blue- hazed vision of the past - very touching? There are images to savour forever - perhaps Salvador Dali influenced?

'.....The basic plot is that Marcello Mastroianni, as a widower, travels to mainland Italy to re-unite his 'children' together on a surprise visit during summer vacation. The family collude, and they endeavour to conceal their lack of success - both in their own personal, and profession lives....'

I watched the film in a London cinema 29 years ago, and went back the following week to watch the film again with my wife to be; I still thoroughly enjoyed my viewing again....that the experience and genius of the art work of the moving image- ( that ) the film conveys....

Cinematography by Blasco Giurato. The film matures and ripens with age, as we age in sentimental nostalgia. The film captures romantic sentiment and sadness in a heart of nostalgia ......as the film ends- as the train of the journey arrives home to Sicily - there seems to be a carriage missing from the original train that started our journey.... In thought: a sense, a loss, one of sadness, and one of longing..... Stanno Tutti Bene!

He lives in Trapani in the far west of Sicily and undertakes to look up all his five children around Italy to find out how they really are. It develops into an odyssey of constantly overwhelming human experiences, as his insight into his children's lives keeps opening up ever widening abysses. Marcello Mastroianni makes perhaps the greatest performance of his life, and he is curiously and appropriately matched with Michele Morgan in her last performance - this episode is brief but provides an oasis of refreshing relief in this heart-rending but magnificent story reaching in spite of all some very harmonising conclusion. The real underlying story is told in brief flashes of hints of understatements, and like Mastroianni you'll have nio idea of what it is all about until he finally has his children for a lunch in Rome, which was all he wanted but which did not turn out as he had imagined. Take care of this film, you will be in for revolting experiences that will not run off.